A/N So it is finally here... bit shorter than I wanted but it was either that or sit on it for another six months... yep. This is the unedited version, I'll repost it when I finnish editing it though it might take a while as school has started up again for me. Any way over and out enjoy :)

Mathias Køhler. An enigma to any person persistent enough to try to figure him out. It wasn't as if he was he was stupid or even particularly clever. He was just, to put it lightly, confusing. One day he was ecstatic, the next he was sunk so far into depression and grief from the past. The worst part was that he hid it all.

Hid it all under a mast of idiocy and oblivion.

Hid it so well that not even his best of friends could tell.

Yet Berri had always had a way of knowing though. Knowing what was going on behind that thick skull of his.

How the Swede managed it, he had no clue. But none the less the Swede did.

Anyone could tell you their relationship was an odd one. One day at each other's throats the next, they were best friends. The Kalmar Union hadn't helped. It really hadn't. If anything it had only pushed them apart further.

Pushed them apart in such a way that the resulting wounds could never be mended.

Even now that they were on better terms the scars still shone through. In the way that Berri always took his teasing seriously. In the ways that he could never quite tell Berri how he felt. How sorry he was. How much he regretted everything and how much he wanted to be able to make it up to him some how.

And when the Swede confessed to him that night, well it had made all those walls that he had carefully constructed over thousands of years come crumbling down. It reminded him of all the times he had wanted to run up to the man who had once been his best friend and sob into his shoulder.

A week smile broke across his lips as he remembered the time he had actually done that.

Stupid neutral Sweden.

Stupid neutral Sweden and his God danged boats.

He had been so messed up back then, so unstable.

The ever cheerful, ever hyperactive, ever eccentric Dane made his way towards the train station. He hated the way he had felt this morning. So anxious, so nervous.

It wasn't normal.

It wasn't him.

Like leaves in the wind his hands were trembling. Why was he so nervous?

It wan't him to be nervous this about meting a friend, or to be nervous about anything really. He chided himself that he had lived for thousands of years. He was Danmark, the king of Northern Europe.
'Really Mathias what have you become from that fearless Viking warrior, the thing that had sent shivers down your spine recently was the prospect of meting your colleague.'
No, not his colleague, he corrected himself. His friend, his brother. Berri was like a brother to him. An Annoying, teasing, patronizing older brother, but a brother none the less.

Sprawled out around him lay the bustling streets of his darling Copenhagen. Remnants of red and white decorations where littered around helter-skelter.

'Wait a moment, that meant..." Let's see if today was the day after his birthday, then that meant. Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot. It was Berri's birthday today. How could he have forgotten? Seriously, it was only a day after his. He was really supposed to remember this stuff.

The ride out of Copenhagen was pleasant. The sun shone brightly overhead as Mathias gazed out the window towards the Øresurd sound. On the whole they had come far. Far from those bloodthirsty kids armed with sharp metal objects.

I was amazing really how far they had come from the constantly bickering teens they had once been. Endlessly war, against one another. Blades always at the other's throat.

All of this raised a question.

Just exactly how was one supposed to say sorry after centuries of hatred?

To be honest he didn't know the answer to that question. But when it came down to it, it wasn't going to stop him from trying. It really wasn't. Once an idea got into Mathias' head it stuck there, no matter how many people tried to eradicate it.


"Berrriii!" shouted the obnoxiously red blur speeding at him.

"Hej."

"Guess what day it is...?" Of course Berwald knew what day it was. It was his day after all. The question was did Den. How ever if this it was it came down do, he might as well humor the overbearing idiot.

"I don't know, what d'y is it then, Danmark?" The spiky haired monstrosity just guffawed at him. Was what he had said really that amusing.

"How can you not know what day it is? I mean come on it's an awesome one." So his day was awesome, now was it?

He never thought he'd live to see the day Mathias called him, indirectly as it may be, awesome. "It's the day after my birthday of course!"

Bright jade eyes glared at the shorter man. He really should have known, really he should have. He should have seen that one coming.

"Oh and Berri..."

"Ja." Don't get your hopes up Sverige, just don't. He's just going to crush them back into the ground.

"Tillykke med fødselsdagen!" The so addressed 'Berri' rolled his eyes. Only you Mathias, only you.


Of all the things for him to find odd this was by far the strangest and perhaps maybe the most understandable. It wasn't that he couldn't get used to this, it was just that he wasn't. He just wasn't.

He wasn't used to strolling aimlessly through the cobbled ways of his arch rival/neighbors town, well it was more of a city, but oh well. It didn't feel normal, especially with the silent companion he had currently by his side. It wasn't uncomfortable though, just un-normal.

Not normal.

Never normal.

It hadn't been for a long time.

Not since they had been kids.

Part of him missed how they had been back then.

Back when there where only three of them.

Back when they had been perfectly happy to run around the frost bitten land and follow Lukas into the depths of Hel herself.

Before there were political relations.

Before there was Finland and Iceland to stand in his way.

He wished he had taken the leap back then. He wished he had stepped up and said what was on his mind, because now... Now... even with Sve's confession to him, it was too late.

Too late, because what could he do now. There was nothing he could do now to make up for the past, but somehow Sweden didn't care. And it was that thought that broke his somber face into a wide grin that only he could make.

It wasn't long before Berri noticed. "What's got you in such a good mood?"

"Nothing", came the cheeky reply.

Berwald merely scrutinized him, trying to figure out the impossible man beside him.

"Well... actually I was thinking maybe we should get a drink. Beer is always good!" Why was Berri looking at him like that. It wasn't like that was a bad idea? What else were they gonna do together? Verbally attack one another? Well they were going to end up doing that anyway, especially if they were drinking... but the point remains.

"Oh yeah, and Berri, before you say it – I know you want to. I can see it in your face – I can't be impossible, I exist." Mathias grinned cheekily up at the taller man.


"Your drinking Carlsburg, in Sweden?"

"Hey, it's your bar that sells it not mine!"

"Only because there are so many idiotic Danish tourists who buy it."

"At least I don't drink salmiak flavored vodka, like a certain wife of yours I could mention."

Berwald immediately clammed up. "He's not my wife!" He said defensively, like he was trying to convince himself more than Denmark.

"Oh sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned..." Mathias didn't know exactly what had come between Sweden and Finland. Politically the winter war, but there was more than that, and even he knew better to pry about that. Despite his cold exterior, Sweden was sensitive, especially about his old "wife". Even if they had split over fifty years ago.

" 's not your fau't." Berri was getting sad again. Oh God, he didn't want this. This day was supposed to be fun. He felt terrible. He wished he could take back mentioning Fin. He had been stupid, too hung up in the moment to think.

"Look Berri, if there's anything I can do..."

"Remember," Berri's voice was low and slurred, he almost couldn't make out what the Swede had said.

"What?"

"Just remember, that's what you can do." Remember what. What was he supposed to remember? Berri eyes were apprehensive, afraid of what he had said, but also hopeful.

It sparked in his brain, that night out in the rain when Berri con... "Berri, if it's about what you said... Well I know I'll never be able to make up for what I've done to you, but just so ya know you're not alone. And if well, if you want to try we can give us a change." His sentences came out in a slurred rush, but as always Berri seemed to have understood what he said. With shocked joy spread across his face the Swede hugged him. "So that's a yes?" Mattie asked.

"Ja," and with that the Swede leaned in, kissing him.